Omotesandō
is known as one of the foremost 'architectural showcase' streets in the world,
featuring a multitude of fashion flagship stores designed by internationally
renowned architects within a short distance of each other. These include the
Louis Vitton store (Jun Aoki, 2002) Prada building
(Herzog & de Meuron, 2003), Tod's (Toyo Ito, 2004), Dior (SANAA, 2004), Omotesandō Hills (Tadao Ando, 2005) and Gyre (MVRDV, 2007), amongst others.

TOD's @ Omotesando

These
two destinations are obviously for fashion enthusiasts and label conscious
shoppers while others would still benefit just from viewing the latest designer
collections and appreciating the ultra modern architecture of imposing flagship
stores.

The Tokyo National Museum of Modern
Art located at 3-1 Kitanomaru-koen, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, on the other hand, is the foremost museum that
is collecting and exhibiting contemporary Japanese art today. Also known by the
English acronym MOMAT (National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) it was the first
National Museum of Art in Japan dating back to 1952, when it was established as
an institution governed by the Ministry of Education. Its collection of 20th
century art includes those from Western-style and Nihonga artists.

Architect of the MOMAT building was Kunio Maekawa. On two later occasions, neighboring premises
were purchased and the Museum was further enlarged to include the Crafts Museum.
The most recent re-design of MOMAT was conceived by Yoshiro Taniguchi (father of Yoshio Taniguchi who designed the extension of MOMA in New York).